News

My beloved Mt. Tam Church,

Good news! The protocols are in! We will be using the protocols from the State, the County, and the Annual Conference as we begin the planning for returning to our buildings and worship. But don’t hold your breath waiting!  “The protocols” are dozens of pages of guidelines and requirements in order to provide a safe and healthy environment upon return. It will take some time and a great deal of detailed effort to create a Site-Specific Plan (SSP) that we will submit to the District Superintendent for approval. I promise to keep our whole congregation informed as we move forward and it will take work from all of us to make it happen. Here’s what is taking place:

1. We have created a Return Team (the football fan in me couldn’t resist) for creating the SSP and doing the work to make the changes we need for return. In addition to Dave Erskine, facilities manager, and me, the team consists of Sue Ernst, Kevin Skiles, and Leslie Lee along with Chris Hubbard and Karen Jernstedt as backup. The Return Team’s job will take the bulk of the summer as we digest the requirements of the protocols, apply them to our situation, and make the proper preparations.  

2.  We are creating a Reimagining Ministry Group, a larger and broader group of lay members who will envision and imagine what “new creation” God is making through and at Mt. Tam Church for the next 6 months to 5 years. The post-COVID 19 church will not look like the church of even six months ago. Fortunately, we are blessed to be in the position to wildly and widely imagine ministry in the new world emerging. If you are interested in being a part of this creative thinking and vision creation, please let me know.  
Finally, I would like to invite each and every church member to take part in one or both Town Hall Meetings on Zoom, to talk about how we are all doing, our concerns, joys, and questions about returning to our buildings and sanctuary. We will also be discussing ideas for the future. You will receive a Zoom invitation soon.  The dates are Wednesday, July 8th, 7 P.M. and Sunday, July 12th at 11:30 A.M. As we move forward in our return process, we will host other Congregational Conversations from time to time.

To prepare for the July 8th and 12th, Chris Hubbard and I will be sending out a Survey Monkey about how people are feeling and thinking about returning. If you would please be so kind to respond, that will be most helpful as we plan and get ready for the Town Hall Meeting. If at any time, you have questions, ideas, or concerns please do not hesitate to call me or email me.  This is OUR church! We are currently doing all right and we look forward to the day when we can be together again. In the meantime and for the future, let’s dream and dare of new ways of being church, becoming the new creation.

In gratitude and peace, 

Pastor Kim

Every Tuesday, the clergy of the Bay District meet via Zoom with our District Superintendent, Staci Current. This week, the meeting ladened heavily with sorrow and anger at the events of this past week—the killing of George Floyd by a police officer and the violence and anger that has followed. Whatever thin veneer that has covered the racism realities of our country has been ripped away and we are left gasping. We spent 8 minutes and 46 seconds in silence—the same length of time the officer held down Mr. George, even minutes after he had stopped breathing. Try it—it’s not an easy silence. Either the length of time or the experience itself. How we move forward as a country is a deep unknown. How do we move forward as a congregation in this reality?  We will each need to have serious conversations with ourselves and our families about what we can and will do. As a congregation, I hope to have a Zoom “town meeting” in 2 weeks. The first reason is to talk about the physical return to worship together and to begin just sharing our own thoughts and feelings about current events. Another place we can address this is in worship.  

This Sunday, we begin an 8-10 part series on joy, “The Joy Project,” based on the book about conversations with the Dhali Lama and Desmond Tutu. At first I thought, “we need to change gears and talk about justice, racism, etc. Who can focus on joy in times like this?” Then, I came across this from The Book of Joy: “What does our joy have to do with addressing the suffering of the world? The more we heal our own pain the more we can turn to the pain of others. The goal is to not just create joy for ourselves but to be as Archbishop Tutu says, “ reservoir of joy, an oasis of peace, a pool of serenity that can ripple out to all those around you. We cannot bring peace if we do not have inner peace. We cannot hope to make the world a better, happier place if we do not also aspire for this in our own lives.”  So on Sundays this summer, in worship, we will do both. Focus on developing deep joy (which is not happiness-tune in this Sunday to learn about the difference) within so that we may turn our joy into justice and action. It’s both a balance and dialectic and no clear easy path. However, it is our calling as Christ’s own. I treasure sharing all of this with you.

 Peace,

Pastor Kim

My beloved Mt. Tam Church,

Does life before the pandemic and shelter in place seem like a long ago memory? This week, as Governor Newsom unveiled the plan for churches to return to in-person worship, I had to think long and hard about what it was like to be together in worship in the sanctuary! In fact, we have been away from our sanctuary only since March 22—that’s how quickly we pivoted (love that word!) and moved to online worship. Now, we are pivoting again as we are given the green light to begin plans for moving back. Today’s letter serves as an update. 

There are two sources of authority that will guide our return to in-person worship, meetings, events, and rentals. The first is Marin County, for the Governor, has given each county the authority to specialize its own plan for the best practices locally. The second is the Annual Conference, through the office of the Bishop, as she guides our churches with safety and health in mind. With those two sources as our primary guides and using other informational resources, we are beginning to craft plans for our return. First and foremost, we will not return to in-person worship until we know we are ready and safe to do so—and even after our return, the services will continue to be available online.

This is a kind of “hybrid” programming, of in-person and online that will continue for the time being. We are preparing the physical spaces by determining best products and practices for cleaning, disinfecting, and training for the custodians, as well as ourselves. Touchless hand sanitizing stations, masks, and instant-read thermometers will be arriving soon. We have assessed each room in the church, as well as the large outdoor space between Fellowship Hall and the sanctuary, for social distancing capacity. We will begin the staff trainings required by the County in the next two weeks. We are also developing guidelines for renters, with the church being indoors, including requiring the wearing of masks, social distancing, and other safety precautions.  There are many checkmarks and forms that we must hurdle before we can return to our buildings. As we move forward, you will be kept informed about actions taken and next steps.

I hope to have a congregational conversation “town hall” via Zoom in about 3 weeks so we can all share how we are doing and how we will come back together. More information on that gathering will follow. In the meantime, we will continue to worship online—this week is Pentecost! So get out some red—a cloth for your table or a red shirt—and plan on welcoming the Holy Spirit into your home worship this week!

For the summer, our worship theme will be based on The Book of Joy (you may remember we did this as a summer project in 2017), based on the book of the title with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Because we can all use more joy, JUMP FOR JOY will be an 8-10 part series in worship, with a home devotional. I believe it is a timely topic and it will strengthen our spirits and faith in these times. 

If you have any questions as we move forward, please email me at pastorkim@mtumc.org. Also if you have any expertise and/or are interested in helping with the large project of getting ready to return, please let me know. We need all the help we can get! With gratitude to God for all good gifts, including you. 

In peace,

Pastor Kim

My beloved Mt. Tam Church,

Last week, I was feeling a bit low, missing in-person interactions with my congregation, and really missing worshipping together in the sanctuary.
Online worship is great, but I miss you all! Then, an email came from Nicole Collman and her son, Cameron, with the message that Cam was thinking about his school’s service project and what would I think about him “being church” while we worship online and take up the Food Bank offering in some form? “Thank you, God,” is what I thought and so below, please find a message from Cam. I hope you participate–big time! Remember, we enter the kingdom “like a child,” and even though Cam is almost a teenager and no child, he is definitely leading us.
Peace,
Pastor Kim

“We also celebrate Owen Hubbard’s gathering of food from his neighbors for the Food Bank for his school project.”

FROM CAM COLLMAN:

Greetings Mt. Tam Church! You may know that people are lining up hungry for hours to get food from food banks. Some of these people never thought they would need to use a food bank, but with the COVID-19 pandemic and the loss of many jobs, this has become a significant problem. 

I am working on a school service project and was motivated by a news story about families waiting for hours to meet their basic food needs. I decided to do my project on collecting community donations for the food bank. I realized that our church has not been able to collect a food bank offering each Sunday because we are all worshiping from home. I thought a good project would be to collect food donations from the church members’ homes and bring those donations to the SF Marin Food Bank. Here is what I am planning to do and how you can help:

My Mom will drive me to your home and I will collect your food donation from your front porch, door, gate, driveway, etc. on Friday, May 22nd by 3:00 PM. If you would like to participate, please contact me below and I will add you to my route that day. Please donate what you are comfortable with.
I will plan to do this once per month until we are able to make our food bank donations in the church again.

I hope that this will help people who are hungry get the food they need.
Thank you!
Cameron Collman

To request a food bank offering pick-up, pleaseCall: 415-384-8835 or email: nicolecollman@gmail.com or Text: 415-608-4016

My beloved Mt. Tam Church,

With the light loosening up on the shelter-in-place rules, the church once again pivots! The first pivot was coming from the sanctuary to converting into online worship in less than one week…the steepest learning curve I’ve ever climbed. Now, as we anticipate more fully towards a return into in person worship, we pivot to a big question:

WHAT WILL THE POST-COVID 19 CHURCH LOOK LIKE?

Over the next few weeks, we will be addressing that question, for ourselves, with staff and church leaders and with the entire congregation. We are ramping up our equipment for video and audio recording, preparing our rooms for safety and sanitation, and thinking of new ways of “being church” in the months and years to come. Watch the Faith Matters for invitations to events for this discussion. And if you have a special interest in the church’s online presence via the website, live streaming, and programming, please let me know. 

It’s great to have good news to share this week! Through the federal stimulus package Payroll Protection Program for Small Businesses and Nonprofit Corporations, we received a loan/grant for 8 weeks of our staff costs!! With that said, first comes thanks to God for generosity and grace. We also give thanks to everyone who made the application and follow-up possible: Laurie Cummings, Marilyn Angelo, Ivania Miranda, Allen Barr, and Lynn Barr.  Everyone gave their time and talent. Furthermore, without Lynn’s tenacity and perseverance in finding a lender and seeing through all the minute details, it might not have happened! The money is in the bank and now, we are learning about the best practices for using the funds. Thanks be to God!

Good news—new ways of being church. What a week to be grateful.

Peace,

Pastor Kim